Strength

[Brokkr]

Skilling your PC up properly means doing it in an IC appropriate manner.  It has nothing to do with whether that PC will be skilled or not.


Right?

[evilcabbage]

if you skill them up properly (and this does not imply gaming the system), for one ic year, and a brand new dwarf comes out of the box with the same class, and you immediately enter life or death combat, your pc will win. human or elf or dwarf or whatever.

you will win because skills matter a lot more than some of the people in this thread seem to be giving them credit for. stats matter when two people are evenly matched. in such a disparity of skill (one ic year), the skills matter far more.

strength is not the end all, be all of stats. it's one of the two primary combat stats. that does not mean it's automatically the most important stat, or even the stat to worry the most over.


edit: you may not see journeyman/advanced combat skills in any way shape or form, but most of your defensive ones will probably be doing pretty well, and your offensive ones won't suffer either. if you think you can game the system with drinking, or with heavy weights, prepare to be superbly disappointed.

[Synthesis]

If your pc that has been around for a year and you get beaten in a straight up fight by a brand new pc, even a dwarf, you were not skilling your combat pc up properly. Being able to hit a scrab reliably is not the only important part of combat.

Is it possible to "not skill your combat PC up properly" if you join one of the major fighting clans (Byn, AoD, Garrison, etc.) and follow the prescribed training regimen?

It depends.  In the past, the jman plateau in human-centric fighting clans was a very real thing.  I suppose it's theoretically possible that the recent skill vs. skill change could be changing how the plateau works, but historically, the chokepoint seems to have been what counts as a failure, not chance of learning from a failure.

[Brytta Léofa]

Skilling your PC up properly means doing it in an IC appropriate manner.

Absolutely true, but

It has nothing to do with whether that PC will be skilled or not.

if you get married and never have sex, in most cases one will suspect that something is not working quite right.

[Brokkr]

Oh, you are having plenty of sex, just no children.

[Dar]

I just spurted my coffee out.

[X-D]

It was funny.

[Cind]

At one of the Luirsfest, an elf kicked a dwarf's butt and neither were greenhorns to the art of fighting.

In all fairness though, the dwarf never managed to land a hit.

Well, for every example like this, there are probably a hundred of the reverse. Realistically, dwarves are an "I win" button at character creation time. It's no mystery why the toughest raiders have been dwarves. It's no mystery why fresh-from-char-creation dwarves kick the asses of humans who have been training diligently for an in-game year or more.

Wait wait wait...the toughest raiders have been what now? Dwarves? HAHAHAHAHA. Oh...that is funny. No, the toughest raiders have been Elves and Gith...possibly halflings in there too. But Since two races were removed from play, in one case existence and the one that is playable the raiding tribes have been closed to play....

In fact, Black moon was mostly humans...with a reasonable spread of other races....Though...I only ever had run-ins with humans and do not personally remember any other races.

Dwarves....giggle.

I agree to the extent that elves were much easier to make into murderers and fearsome raiders in the recent past, but with Tuluk and the Jaxa Pah closed for a while now... and then there's the soldiers of 'nak who have fewer 'victims' that they are literally being paid to get rid of, so they're probably harder on those that remain. I think a bigger playerbase and more career options for elves that help them survive to that point were better for the pc elf population in general.

There are elves who don't need those things, obviously. But I assume you'd need to know what you were doing, and like the other races have a bit of luck. You're lucky to survive a year in this game just being a friggin' House crafter, much less be involved in combat every other time you log in.

[Synthesis]

If your pc that has been around for a year and you get beaten in a straight up fight by a brand new pc, even a dwarf, you were not skilling your combat pc up properly. Being able to hit a scrab reliably is not the only important part of combat.

Is it possible to "not skill your combat PC up properly" if you join one of the major fighting clans (Byn, AoD, Garrison, etc.) and follow the prescribed training regimen?

It depends.  In the past, the jman plateau in human-centric fighting clans was a very real thing.  I suppose it's theoretically possible that the recent skill vs. skill change could be changing how the plateau works, but historically, the chokepoint seems to have been what counts as a failure, not chance of learning from a failure.

Additionally, since you can't really tell whether you're losing to an NPC because its O/D are higher than yours, or because its stats are simply better, theoretically there is the possibility that you could get your ass kicked by a particular mob in perpetuity and never (or only rarely) get better at fighting it.

[Heade]

If your pc that has been around for a year and you get beaten in a straight up fight by a brand new pc, even a dwarf, you were not skilling your combat pc up properly. Being able to hit a scrab reliably is not the only important part of combat.

Is it possible to "not skill your combat PC up properly" if you join one of the major fighting clans (Byn, AoD, Garrison, etc.) and follow the prescribed training regimen?

It depends.  In the past, the jman plateau in human-centric fighting clans was a very real thing.  I suppose it's theoretically possible that the recent skill vs. skill change could be changing how the plateau works, but historically, the chokepoint seems to have been what counts as a failure, not chance of learning from a failure.

Additionally, since you can't really tell whether you're losing to an NPC because its O/D are higher than yours, or because its stats are simply better, theoretically there is the possibility that you could get your ass kicked by a particular mob in perpetuity and never (or only rarely) get better at fighting it.

Or even the same PC that you spar with every day and lose to. This seems like it'd be a problem, to me. If all this was done to prevent power gamers from twinking up their skills on high stat mobs, but it also damages regular players' ability to improve skills through legitimate play, is it really worth it? Or does it end up being more damaging to the game?

[tapas]

It does end up damaging players who don't prioritize combat stats. That's seems certain.

[evilcabbage]

it means stop fighting the same animal all the time and fight a variety.

[Synthesis]

it means stop fighting the same animal all the time and fight a variety.

oh geeze thanks why didn't i think of that

By which I mean to say...in a particular ecosystem, at a particular skill level, there's typically only 1 critter at a given time that will allow you to fail, without wrecking your face.  The only exception to this is the Happy Hunting Grounds.  Everyone who has half a bit of experience grinding it out in a particular ecosystem knows what the critter progression is.

Additionally, if O/D failures work the way I think they work, it's possible for your O/D to continue to rise while you're never getting any better at any of your combat skills, which over time only further exacerbates the problem of finding something that a) will give you fails and b) has a reasonable O/D differential.

[Brokkr]

Do you mean weapon skills, when you say combat skills?  Not going to be a problem most characters are ever going to get near having.  Also you have to remember the O/D differential applies to learning weapon skills as well.

[Heade]

Do you mean weapon skills, when you say combat skills?  Not going to be a problem most characters are ever going to get near having.  Also you have to remember the O/D differential applies to learning weapon skills as well.

Just out of curiousity, why do you say it's not a problem most PCs would get near having? I've sort of noticed a jman plateau on weapon skills, myself, and while I don't get to see what O/D is at, it doesn't feel like my PCs improve a whole lot, despite consistently getting beat on by other PCs.

[Synthesis]

Do you mean weapon skills, when you say combat skills?  Not going to be a problem most characters are ever going to get near having.  Also you have to remember the O/D differential applies to learning weapon skills as well.

Weapon and style skills are the main problems, yes.  I'm not sure about kick/bash/disarm. I haven't got any one of those to improve  (visibly...e.g. from novice to apprentice) at all since the new classes went in (which I assume is for a good reason, not a bug, so I won't address those).

Not sure what you mean by "most players," either.  At 7 days, with a jman weapon skill, I'm already at the point where generating weapon failures on non-uber critters is difficult, even though I'm still getting my ass kicked* by mediocre mobs when they roll good stats.

Presumably, my O/D is going up, since I'm still getting rekt...so to me it seems like at 7 days, I'm already squarely within that problem range where there are three categories of critters in the world:  1) too easy to generate any skill improvement from; 2) the ones I can hit 99.9% of the time, but that also hit me 50% of the time; and 3) the ones I -might- be able to get a failure from, but I would run an unacceptable risk of getting instagibbed by.

Now (again, presumably), my base O/D might continue to improve to the point where I can reliably dodge those next-tier mobs.  However...at that point, will my base O/D be so high that now I can't successfully learn from missing attacks on them?  By the time I can successfully dodge them enough to hunt them without risking an instagib, will my base O/D be so high that now I can hit them 99.9% of the time, even with a jman weapon skill?  Will my low chance to learn and my low chance to miss synergize to make it incredibly rare to get a skillgain?  At this point I feel like I'm just describing the jman plateau.

Anyway, the reason this matters with respect to strength is that since it's very difficult to break out of the jman plateau, it's better to be able land hard hits to non-critical areas, because non-critical areas are going to be where most of your hits land.  If your strength is low, armor proportionally absorbs a much higher percentage of your potential damage output to those non-critical areas.  So...if you're going to get stuck at jman, it's better to be landing 12-damage leg shots.

*by "ass kicked" I mean taking more than moderate condition damage in a single 1v1 encounter, not actually being nearly killed by a jozhal

[roughneck]

Do you mean weapon skills, when you say combat skills?  Not going to be a problem most characters are ever going to get near having.  Also you have to remember the O/D differential applies to learning weapon skills as well.

Weapon and style skills are the main problems, yes.  I'm not sure about kick/bash/disarm. I haven't got any one of those to improve  (visibly...e.g. from novice to apprentice) at all since the new classes went in (which I assume is for a good reason, not a bug, so I won't address those).

Not sure what you mean by "most players," either.  At 7 days, with a jman weapon skill, I'm already at the point where generating weapon failures on non-uber critters is difficult, even though I'm still getting my ass kicked* by mediocre mobs when they roll good stats.

Presumably, my O/D is going up, since I'm still getting rekt...so to me it seems like at 7 days, I'm already squarely within that problem range where there are three categories of critters in the world:  1) too easy to generate any skill improvement from; 2) the ones I can hit 99.9% of the time, but that also hit me 50% of the time; and 3) the ones I -might- be able to get a failure from, but I would run an unacceptable risk of getting instagibbed by.

Now (again, presumably), my base O/D might continue to improve to the point where I can reliably dodge those next-tier mobs.  However...at that point, will my base O/D be so high that now I can't successfully learn from missing attacks on them?  By the time I can successfully dodge them enough to hunt them without risking an instagib, will my base O/D be so high that now I can hit them 99.9% of the time, even with a jman weapon skill?  Will my low chance to learn and my low chance to miss synergize to make it incredibly rare to get a skillgain?  At this point I feel like I'm just describing the jman plateau.

Anyway, the reason this matters with respect to strength is that since it's very difficult to break out of the jman plateau, it's better to be able land hard hits to non-critical areas, because non-critical areas are going to be where most of your hits land.  If your strength is low, armor proportionally absorbs a much higher percentage of your potential damage output to those non-critical areas.  So...if you're going to get stuck at jman, it's better to be landing 12-damage leg shots.

*by "ass kicked" I mean taking more than moderate condition damage in a single 1v1 encounter, not actually being nearly killed by a jozhal

I get the impression you can still bump combat skills with the traditional high agility, low O/D critters, you just won't be improving your base O/D in addition to your skills.

[Brokkr]

Your O and your D do two different things and don't go up based on the same things as each other.

So if your journeyman weapon skill isn't going up, your O probably isn't going up either.  Thus, most people are not going to have this problem, unless you train in very specific ways.

As far as weapon styles:

Shield use-If you can't get to go up I don't know what to say.
Dual wield-Goes up like it always did, not impacted by opponent O/D.
Two handed-We recently fixed this.  Due to math being hard, a sign was switched and for awhile it was easier to learn on easier opponents, rather than easier to learn on harder opponents.

kick/bash/disarm - Not relevant to anything in this entire thread, really.

It is also worth noting that the O/D learn change didn't get rid of the plateau.  It moved it a bit higher.  It made it quicker to get to.  It is still hard to get to the upper reaches of skill.  It is easiest for heavy combat to get good at combat because their chance of learning is greater.  As you move each category from there to heavy merchantile you will find it harder and harder to learn O/D and weapon skills, due to the chance of learning from a failure being smaller.

[evilcabbage]

so the plateau is something that is both accepted and intentional among staff? is it meant to represent something akin to 'the average of warriors reach this level, and those who go beyond it are above and beyond the average warrior"?

[gotdamnmiracle]

If the plateau is a thing what would you suggest a player do if not twink in some silly way or another to become that exceptional warrior?

[roughneck]

If the plateau is a thing what would you suggest a player do if not twink in some silly way or another to become that exceptional warrior?

I think it's been said. Take risks to fight tough enough things that will make you exceptional.

[Hauwke]

Be a Bynner and fight every one of the Runners all at once. Bound to hit you at least once!

[gotdamnmiracle]

If the plateau is a thing what would you suggest a player do if not twink in some silly way or another to become that exceptional warrior?

I think it's been said. Take risks to fight tough enough things that will make you exceptional.

Doesn't that then present problems as well? The things that we aren't allowed to do in favor of realism are weigh our PC's down to drop combat efficiency (despite the fact that this is a common thing for martial artists and military organizations to do; train with excessive loads to try and normalize operating under tough conditions), You can't fight drunk (except that is a tactic martial artists have used to train, again, under circumstances when you are impaired, in the same way the military will train you to fight while hungry, exhausted, thirsty and homesick), and lastly you can't fistfight animals, despite being able to do so with PCs and NPCs because it presumably raises O/D, but it's unrealistic to fight animals barehanded (despite the fact that crocodile wrestling and hog tying are definitely a thing in the real world).

All of this, yet my PC is supposed to either say "Now all of you come at me at once!" under the pretense that they'll hopefully be so disoriented that they'll fail to whack a few newbies (which I can imagine happening in in a Jackie Chan movie, sure, but in real life I doubt I'd learn much from being dog piled) or alternatively go out and fight the horrors that lurk on the periphery of the Known (which is laughably unrealistic in the context of the game world. If my PC is expected to go out and tango with something like a bahamet with something short of a full hunting party. That's about as fantastic as any of the magick in the game available to your average PC. Yet it's apparently supposed to be one of our only recourses).

Why is the line drawn where it is between these two sides? It seems completely arbitrary, considering neither seems far more or less realistic than any of the others. And understand me when I say, I hate all of these options because I find them laughably unrealistic, on the whole. There needs to be a better option for late-game players to improve that doesn't require any of this garbage.

[Brokkr]

You probably have a different perspective, but let me change that last sentence for you:

There needs to be a better option for way to limit every late-game players to improveing to an exceptional level, so that it is still exceptional for them. that doesn't require any of this garbage.

What has been weeded out, like fighting weighted or drunk fighting, is easy skill failures in low risk environments when you aren't practicing with someone better than you.

Find and practice with someone better than you.
Find and kill something that takes some risk.*

*A bahamet may or may not be a good candidate for this, based on a number of factors, one of which is the title of this thread.

[Dar]

Actually, the idea is simple


Train with other PCs.

As you train, their skill levels will increase to your heights fast, or your skill levels will increase faster to reach their hights.

Once thats done, since your skills are all roughly equal, you progress at a neutral pace. Not faster since your opponent isnt higher then you. Now slower, since your opponent is not lower then you.

This discourages loner training tactics and encourages pc interactive tactics. Win win win.

Or am I missing something?